The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon. A French Press style coffee press is a coffee and tea brewing vessel which often comprises a cylinder with a fixed bottom, an open top, and a lid supporting an operating rod connected to a filter disk or screen. In typical use of such a coffee press, brewing usually involves placing ground coffee, tea, or other material inside the vessel, pouring hot water into the vessel, optionally stirring, and waiting an appropriate brewing time. When brewing is complete, the lid is typically placed on top of the vessel with the operating rod in the fully outward or up position. Then, the rod may be pressed downward so that the filter disk moves through the water and ground material, which generally results in pressing the ground material to the bottom of the vessel. The brewed coffee, tea or other beverage may then be poured off while the filter disk typically keeps the spent brewing material at the bottom of the vessel and separated from the liquid. When brewing is done one may expect that the brewing vessel may need to be cleaned by removing the spent brewing material. Typically, the material becomes a moist, packed “puck” which adheres to the bottom and sides of the brewing vessel and may be hard to remove. The removal of spent material in current French Presses may require the removal of the lid with the operating rod and filter disk and then a manual cleaning of the spent brewing material with a long handled spoon, scraping, flushing, or other removal techniques.
The following is an example of a specific aspect in the prior art that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon. By way of educational background, another aspect of the prior art generally useful to be aware of is that there are currently some methods and devices to aid in cleaning existing coffee presses. For example, without limitation, some coffee presses comprise an additional disk on the bottom to dislodge spent material that may be operated by multiple rods, tabs, string, etc. Additional cleaning aids may involve the placement of a cup, filter, or other mechanism on the bottom of the coffee press to assist in dislodging the grounds. One exemplary prior art coffee press reverses the traditional French Press so that removal of the grounds may be achieved through the top of the press by the activation of a driven filter plate in a sealed chamber. Further currently available cleaning aids include, without limitation, an external tool to assist in cleaning that operates similarly to an auger or other external cleaning tools such as, but not limited to, cleaning brushes, sponges with extendable handles, scraping utensils, etc.
In view of the foregoing, it is clear that these traditional techniques are not perfect and leave room for more optimal approaches.
Unless otherwise indicated illustrations in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.